"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

him. She had heard later that the Lord had cast elf-shot at him; and that
should he ever again pass an imperfect blade, the tiny sliver of elf-stone
lodged in his chest would lash him again with the same agonies.

Serina wondered; if her father sent out a fighter judged to be "imperfectly
trained," would the same thing happen to him?

She shivered as she realized that the answer was "yes" and that no excuses
would be accepted.

"If you would rise, do so alone," she heard in her mind, and recalled the
gold-bedecked woman at Lord Dyran's side, watching the smith writhe in
agony at her feet, her face impassive.

The lesson was there, and easy to read.

Rise alone and fall alone. If he had cared half as much for me as he did for
the purity of his blades--but I was less than a blade, and he had a
replacement standing ready.

As she took each step, each breath in agony, there was a hotter fire burning
in her mind. Once Lord Dyran had grown tired of her, she was of less use
than one of his pensioners. And he no longer cared what happened to her.

The pensioners--once she had scorned them; the weak in power, or elven
"lords" fallen on hard times, who had lost too much in the ever-renewing
duels. The duels were fought by their trained gladiators, but they represented
very real feuds, and the losses incurred when their fighters lost were equally
real...

Twice as pathetic were the sad cases whose magic was too weak to
accomplish more than self-protection. Though these "pensioners" could not
be collared, they could be coerced in other, more subtle ways. They often
served as overseers, as chief traders, and in other positions of trust. They
were neither wholly of the world of the High Lords, nor pampered as
luxuriously as the treasured slaves, such as concubines and entertainers.
Serina had pitied them, once.

No. Better to fall, she thought, than eke out a miserable, scrabbling existence
like theirs...

Better to have reigned at least for a little while; to have stood at Lord Dyran's
side, and answered to no one but her master... to have feared only purely
mortal trickery. Unlike the pensioners, whose every action was a move in a
game they did not understand.

"So," Dyran said, regarding the top of the trembling overseer's head, as the
elven subordinate knelt before him. "It would seem the quota cannot be met."
He was all in black today, and the milky light from the skylight overhead
made his hair gleam like silver on his shoulders. He had a look about him